Neon Neon

Whilst the duo may be looking ahead to the aftermath of the album, something monumental awaits in the nearer future. In a startlingly bold move, the album will be presented in the coming months via a unique meeting of live music and interactive theatre, at a secret location in Cardiff, Bristol’s Motion warehouse club, London’s Village Underground, and the Latitude and Festival No. 6 festivals. Working alongside National Theatre Wales and the playwright Tim Price, the closely-guarded production invites a plethora of questions. “I met up with National Theatre Wales a while back after doing music for a theatre piece by (Turner Prize nominated artist) Phil Collins” relays Gruff. “I mentioned that we had this idea about Feltrinelli and I met with Tim Price. It became apparent Tim would embrace the Feltrinelli subject matter like no one else. He’s a very energetic guy and brought a real enthusiasm to making it a kind of interactive concert. Initially one of my worries was making something that was too rock opera, y’know, but I think it’s going to be a very different experience, very engaging for the audience.” Gruff is also quick to acknowledge that these shows may push himself and Bryan to new levels as musicians and performers. “It’s going to be very different to anything we’ve been involved in, and hopefully people will leave with a lot of ideas planted in their heads politically. Sonically it’s going to be very extreme. We’ve got a friend, Michael, doing the sound design, and he did the first run of My Bloody Valentine comeback shows at the Roundhouse, which was probably the loudest PA ever put together!”

Neon Neon – ‘Hammer & Sickle’ from Lex Records on Vimeo.

The idea of imparting political and contextual ideas is important to Neon Neon, and is certainly effective. Research into the figures on which they base their records can lead you down a seemingly endless wormhole of information and anecdotes. It’s fascinating to take part in such an interactive relationship between pop music and history. “I’d encourage it”, reflects Gruff, “particularly with Feltrinelli. Because he published so many incredible books, and the world you can find yourself in when it comes to his legacy is indefinite. Obviously as a man and a revolutionary he was very contradictory, and he came from an era of violence, which can be problematic. But as a publisher he was a character of real inspiration.”

A key part of the Praxis Makes Perfect process – in terms of gathering information, recording, and forming the basis of these spectacular release shows – was a fact finding mission to Italy, consisting of Gruff, Bryan and Tim Price. “There were many reasons” explains Gruff. “We wanted to record some people in Italy, so we recorded Asia Argento doing dialogue and Sabrina Salerno (Italian TV presenter, actress and singer) and we contacted the family, because they still run the Giangiacomo Foundation in Milan.” There the trip took an extraordinary turn. “We went to their library and got to handle the original manuscript of Dr. Zhivago, handwritten, and letters between Marx and Engels, and an original copy of The Communist Manifesto! It was a really inspirational time.”

Bryan was also strongly affected by the excursion, particularly in the way it has informed the Praxis Makes Perfect live shows. “Tim would just come up with all these brilliant, crazy ideas, and in a way I thought ‘this is fun to think about, but there’s no way this could really happen, right?’” He audibly grins. “But the craziest thing is that this stuff is actually happening! We’re hearing all these things the theatre’s developing and it’s just mind-blowing.”

As Neon Neon became increasingly immersed in the album’s intensely layered backstory, their ability to maintain the levity of 80s pop music throughout Praxis Makes Perfect becomes more impressive still. It’s easy to get lost in a web of contexts and forget the irresistible melodies and glittering keyboard trills that make Neon Neon such insanely good fun to listen to. “We didn’t want to make an earnest protest record” Gruff stresses. “Feltrinelli was a very contradictory man, and I think making a glossy, melodramatic record seemed more apt, in a way.” It’s fascinating to see a man like Gruff, a politicised Welshman, embrace the projected glitz of the 80s in this way, considering the version of that decade in which he grew up was a period of great social unrest. “I agree completely” he says. “In the 1980s as a teenager I was listening to The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Smiths, Sonic Youth, Big Black, the raw end of it. Maybe I’m now able to revisit those kind of melodramatic sounds without the pain!”

In terms of capturing the more mainstream sounds of that period, Boom Bip speaks with considerable authority. “We don’t want Neon Neon to sound like us, to sound like our solo work, so we made a very conscious decision to steer clear of thinking about modern music. We developed this obsession with old synthesisers and drum machines.” In that respect, he sees a clear distinction between this record and their first. “The last record had more contemporary elements whereas with this one the story, the ideas and the flow seemed like it should be more focused and stripped down.” When discussing these technical, stylistic elements, his voice becomes enthused. “One synth I really focused on using, which was a massive part of late 80s/early 90s music – you could basically hear it on every pop record of that time – was the Roland D-50, and that became the centrepiece for the tone of the album, along with the older Korg analogue synths. It’s important to limit yourself to certain instruments and techniques. I admire that minimal mid-80s sound that people like Shep Pettibone were using at the time. They kept it very simple and very … chunky.”